Friday Freewriting – Megan – May 7, 2021

Posted on May 7, 2021May 6, 2021 by Epic Book Club

I’m a little disappointed with myself on this freewrite. It was fun, don’t get me wrong! In the interest of time I missed the chance be more creative in my approach to a certain type of magical object. I have to remind myself that this exercise is supposed to get the creative juices flowing, and it’s not a system to produce perfect ideas on the first try. I’d love to see how others interpret these prompts, so please comment or link back to your own site so that I can see!

Character: Librarian

Object: Rug

Genre: Speculative Fiction

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Friday Freewriting – Robert – May 7, 2021

Posted on May 7, 2021May 6, 2021 by Epic Book Club

20091204_Hermitage_library_001 — Image by Christopher John SSF

This week’s prompts were:

Character: Librarian
Object: Rug
Genre/Tone: Speculative (SF/F)

I found it impossible to avoid the trope of the flying carpet. It made me wonder about images that are so deeply ingrained in our cultural imagination that they are utterly inescapable. So now I’m motivated to figure out how to make a magical carpet that doesn’t fly. What other magical properties might a carpet have?

On the other hand, I also found it impossible to name a librarian anything other than Marion, even if I genderbent him. I’m not exploring that at all.

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Friday Freewriting – Megan – April 30, 2021

Posted on April 30, 2021April 30, 2021 by Epic Book Club

Another Friday, another freewrite. As I mentioned last week, my goal was to be serious this week in my attempt; I avoided humor, at least. I did not do a great job at capturing the “Romance” genre, per se. I could also see the argument that the main character is not a father, though he was offered the chance. Let me know what you think, and I’d love to read what you write if you try this prompt!

Character: Father

Object: Ottoman

Genre/Tone: Romance

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Friday Freewriting – Robert – April 30, 2021

Posted on April 30, 2021April 29, 2021 by Epic Book Club

Doing this every week is revealing, to say the least. The first thing it’s teaching me is how shallow my understanding of various genres really is. My writing is more of a parody of a stereotype of romance—to take this week’s exercise as an example—than it is actually evoking the genre.

Brown Leather Chair and Ottoman $1395 — Photo by Paris on Ponce & Le Maison Rouge

On the other hand, it’s proving that I actually can bring a story to completion under time pressure, if I’m given enough structure. I have not once had an idea of how any of these stories would end. But I’m able to find an ending in the roughly twenty minutes of actual writing. They’re kinda clichéd and lame (today, I had two endings, and I decided on this one; I’ll put the alternate ending in the comments), but they’re endings that wrap up the story. That’s honestly more than I thought I could do on a regular basis.

As always, we’d love to see your take on these prompts in the comments. Or just poke fun at our attempts!

Character: Father

Object: Ottoman

Genre/Tone: Romance

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Friday Freewriting – Robert – April 23, 2021

Posted on April 23, 2021April 23, 2021 by Epic Book Club

We’re writing new original stories every week, and we’ll be posting them on Fridays. Here’s Robert’s response to this week’s prompts. Feel free to use the prompts to write your own story, and to share it in the comments if you like.

Character: Photographer

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Friday Freewriting – Megan – April 23, 2021

Posted on April 23, 2021April 23, 2021 by Epic Book Club

We’re writing new original stories every week, and we’ll be posting them on Fridays. Here’s Megan’s response to this week’s prompts. Feel free to use the prompts to write your own story, and to share it in the comments if you like.

Megan here: I started writing this and I thought I’d try being serious for once. But then I couldn’t resist trying to tell a joke. Maybe I’ll be serious next week. Only time will tell.

Character: Photographer

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Friday Freewriting – Megan – April 16, 2021

Posted on April 16, 2021April 15, 2021 by Epic Book Club

As mentioned, we’re writing new original stories every week, and we’ll be posting them on Fridays. So here are the prompts we used this week, followed by Megan’s story. Feel free to use the prompts to write your own story, and to share it in the comments if you like.

https://flic.kr/p/dSAEtu

Character: Accountant

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Friday Freewriting – Robert – April 16, 2021

Posted on April 16, 2021April 15, 2021 by Epic Book Club

As mentioned, we’re writing new original stories every week, and we’ll be posting them on Fridays. So here are the prompts we used this week, followed by Robert’s story (crossposted at his personal site). Feel free to use the prompts to write your own story, and to share it in the comments if you like.

Character: Accountant

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Back to Basics

Posted on April 12, 2021April 12, 2021 by Epic Book Club

It’s been a while since our last post. We’ve been working on a writing project which has kept us pretty focused on our own little world. But we’re poking our heads up again, and looking forward to connecting with others!

One way we’re doing that is by writing an original story (each of us) every week, just to get in the habit of telling stories. These aren’t really serious stories, really just writing exercises – but they’re exercises that create a complete story with a beginning, a middle, and an ending.

There are lots of ways to do this, but for the moment we’re using what we’re calling the Mary Robinette Method.

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